


The One That Got Away

by venom_what_that_tongue_do



Series: song based oneshots [3]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a Katy Perry Song, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Unrequited Love, dreamnotfound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:06:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venom_what_that_tongue_do/pseuds/venom_what_that_tongue_do
Summary: high school AUbased on the song "the one that got away" by Katy Perry (i recommend the acoustic version)I'm bad at summaries but there's no smut, mainly angst? some fluff?i swear the writing is good---they're graduating high school and George moves away but they're in love omg such a surprise
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: song based oneshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193840
Kudos: 41





	The One That Got Away

**Author's Note:**

> i cried while writing this but reading it its not as sad now that im reading over it

Two boys sat on the bed of a truck belonging to the father of one of them. Gowns and caps folded nicely and sitting in the passenger seat. Today, they had graduated senior year of high school. It was about 9:30 at night. The truck was parked on the edge of the football field. If an outsider had looked at them, the scene would have looked straight out of a movie. But this wasnt a movie, this was just them. 

Clay was a stereotypical popular football player, the other, George, was a student known for good grades and rule-following. Nobody expected them to know each other, let alone be best friends. Anytime Clay had a game, George was always in the stands cheering the hardest. When George got out of class, Clay was always outside the door waiting for George to walk him to his next class. You never saw one without the other. Some students thought they had something going on that wasnt platonic, but the pair made sure to shoot down any thoughts of the sort. 

Clay, or Dream, as George called him, leaned back so he laid staring at the stars. George glanced at the boy next to him and followed his lead. “Do you remember when we first met?” Dream asked softly. 

“Of course I do!” George said defensively. Dream looked over at George, silently telling him to elaborate. George rolled his eyes and began the story “It was the week after freshman year had started. My mom told me to run to the store and get bread; we were out at the time. You were working on one of the cash registers. I noticed you because you were in my homeroom, so I went to your register.” George paused for a moment as if he wanted to say more, but he didn’t “After that, we started talking in homeroom, and its been history since” 

George looked over to Dream, who had been staring at him instead of the night sky that was full of stars. Dream looked away from George and faced the sky again. George did the same. 

“Do you remember when we would steal your parents’ booze and climb to your roof?” Dream smiled.

George laughed at the memory “We used to talk for hours on end. Talking about our future as if we already knew everything there was to know” 

“You wanted to get matching tattoos” Dream chuckled.

George scoffed and lightly slapped Dreams arm “I still think it’s not a horrible idea!”

“Of our Minecraft characters though?!” 

George’s voice raised “oh shut up! I was 14!”

The pair laughed and continued to reminisce on past memories. 

Once the laughter died down, the realization of what was happening started to set in. 

“We’re graduating,” George said in disbelief. 

Dream turned to face him “we already did”

“We’re going to different colleges...” George whispered. 

“Across the country from each other” Dream finished his best friend’s thought. 

George propped himself up onto his elbow and Dream did the same. The silence of the night was loud. Tears formed at the edges of George’s eyes. 

“Promise me you’ll stay in touch” George held out his pinky. 

“Only if you promise too” Dream locked their fingers. 

They stayed in that position for a few seconds, silently hoping that this moment would last forever. They maintained eye contact throughout the whole ordeal. Only breaking when Dream’s eyes wandered to George’s lips. George blushed when he noticed. Butterflies swarmed in his stomach. 

In a soft but swift movement, George leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on Dreams lips. He began to pull away, but when Dream brought his hand up to hold George’s cheek, he leaned back into the kiss. It wasnt a sexually driven kiss, it was gentle and passionate. It was slow and was meant to show the mutual love between the two. They only pulled away because they needed air. Both of their faces were bright red from embarrassment and shock. 

Dream sat up and looked down at the grass below them. Geroge slowly followed the other’s action. “We should probably get going,” Dream said, avoiding eye contact with George. 

“Oh...” George said softly “yeah... I agree,” he said as he got down from the bed of the truck. 

The drive to George’s house was quiet and tension-filled. The following weeks leading up to George leaving for California, where he was going to college, were surprisingly normal. They had silently agreed the kiss never happened. 

The following years were lonely at the start. Without George, Dream was just Clay. Despite being an outgoing and friendly guy, he struggled to make close friends in college. Once summer rolled around and he was visiting his parents, he expected to see George again, only to hear that his parents had moved away to be closer to George. As if things couldn’t get any worse, they lost touch. Nightly calls and hours of texts drifted away until they only had a conversation once every few months and didn’t call at all. 

Clay blamed himself for letting it get this bad. He cherished every message from George but never texted first. Maybe it was the fact he knew they weren’t as close, or maybe the fact conversations didn’t flow the same as they did back then, but none the less, George stopped texting first, and therefore, all contact between the two stopped. 

Slowly but surely, Clay moved on. Yes, it was difficult, and yes he still had Dreams of George, but he managed. He convinced himself George was nothing more than a high school fling. “the one that got away”. He got a girlfriend, made friends, graduated college, and lived his life. After a while, George became a distant memory. Clay got married, he got a house, and he was ready to start a family. 

Clay was visiting his hometown, sitting in a bar alone watching the game, sipping a beer. The place was loud, too loud to be able to identify any voice or conversation. Somehow, Clay still managed to hear that voice. The voice of his high school fling. The broken promise. The one that got away.  _ George. _

Dream quickly got out of his seat. He had convinced himself that George meant nothing to him, so why was Dream walking around the bar, pushing through people, attempting to find the source of the voice he heard. As he rushed around, a man at a table in the corner caught his eye. The man’s back was facing Clay, but he was sure it was George. It had to be him. Please let it be him. 

Clay froze in place but managed to carefully move towards the man. He tapped on the man’s shoulder forcing him to turn. Clay’s stomach dropped. It wasnt George. He stood, staring at the man in disappointment. Only brought back to reality when the stranger in front of him asked if he was okay. Clay apologized and told him he thought he was someone else. The man gave him a weird look and turned back to his table of friends to continue whatever conversation they were having. 

Clay cursed at himself for believing he would see George again. George was gone from his life and he should know that by now. Clay turned to walk out of the bar in frustration and sadness. He got outside and heard someone follow him out. He was too tired and conflicted to care who it was. 

“Looking for me?” a familiar voice said. 

Clay whipped around to see George. He had changed, but not enough for Dream to not be able to recognize him. 

Tears brimmed at Dreams eyes “George?” he whispered. Any normal person wouldn’t be able to hear his words, but George wasnt any normal person. He was Dreams high school fling. His broken promise. The one that got away. 

George nodded with tears flowing down his face, overwhelmed with the joy of seeing Dream again. Dream choked out a sob. “George” he said louder than before. 

“Hi, Dream...” the man in front of him said. 

Dream let out a sad laugh at the sound of the old nickname he hadn’t heard in years. He surged forward, and picked up George, and spun around. George grasped Dreams face and the two fell into a passionate kiss. A kiss of two lovers meeting after being away from each other for so, so long. 

After the initial meet, they sat on a bench outside the bar, catching up on each other’s life. Turns out George was working in a stuffy office in a dead-end job. He hated it. He had tried to date, but couldn’t. Nobody could even begin to compare to what he felt towards Dream. 

Dream felt horrible when he explained that he had a wife, and was about to have a family of his own. Sure, Dream didn’t love his wife the same way he loved George, but he couldn’t leave her. He had worked so hard to get where he was now, and he couldn’t leave that all behind. 

The disappointment in George’s face was heart-shattering. No matter how much he wanted to run away and live a new, happy, life with George, he can’t do that to his wife. She doesn’t deserve to be abandoned like that. 

George told Dream he understood and got up from the bench. He really did understand Dream not wanting to leave your life behind, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. George doesn’t know what he had expected. Of course, he wouldn’t want to leave his life behind to run off with a high school friend! Feelings or not, nobody in their right mind would do that. George felt like an idiot. He turned to Dream who was still sitting and with tears in his eyes he began, “It was nice seeing you again,”

He paused. 

“...Clay.”

Now it was Dreams turn to feel his heart shatter. He watched as George walked away, not looking back. He watched as George got in his car and drove off. Tears streamed down Clay’s face. Nothing could have prepared him for what just happened. 

After he saw George leave that night, he never heard or saw him again. He got back to his house, went up to his room, laid in bed, and tried his best to pretend the night never happened. His wife of course noticed his shift in mood, with Clay constantly reassuring her nothing was wrong. He never went back to “normal”. He constantly Dreamed about George. He often fantasized about what would have happened if he did what George wanted; packed his bags and left. 

But you can’t change the past. No amount of money could buy him a time machine. 

Eventually, he and his wife had children, two healthy baby boys; twins. Clay got older, his kids grew up and lived their lives. From an outside perspective, Clay lived the perfect life. His wife passed at 75. He and their family mourned her death. Clay lived to be 82, passing peacefully in his sleep. In his last moments, he Dreamed of George. He hoped and prayed to whatever god there was, that in another life he would see George again. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes. He would keep his promises, make sure George stayed, it was them against the world. Just so that he didn’t have to consider George the one that got away. 

\----

You sit in your attic with your mom going through the belongings of your grandfather. You find a yearbook from his junior year in high school. You quickly find his photo, but soon flip to the page defining each graduating senior to a “most likely to...” phrase. You spot a pair of boys in the bottom corner. One was tall with shaggy hair wearing a letterman jacket, next to him was a shorter boy with dark neat hair. The words above the photo read “most likely to stay friends forever” with the names Clay and George printed neatly below. The names rang so many different alarms in your brain, but it couldn’t be. You pulled out your phone and snapped a picture of the boys and the description, quickly tweeting it tagging popular content creators Dream and GeorgeNotFound captioning it with something funny about being best friends forever. 

At that moment, Dream and George just so happened to be on call, with George mindlessly scrolling through his Twitter mentions. Something caught his eye, a photo of two boys in a very old looking yearbook. They looked strangely like him and Dream and even shared the same names. George looked at the photo closely and found the name of the high school printed in the corner of the page. 

“Hey, Dream?” George questioned

“Yeah?” 

“Do you know anything about Eastwood High School?” 

“What?” Dream sounded shocked “I mean, yeah. It was a popular high school near where I lived when I was younger. Actually, it got torn down recently cause it’s been abandoned for years. How do you even know about it?” 

“Here, look at this” George screenshotted the tweet and sent it to his friend via discord. 

They both went silent. 

“Is that...” Dream began but never finished his sentence. 

“It’s us...” George said breathlessly. 

Dream laughed and made a comment about how they were destined to be best friends. George laughed without hearing what Dream said, he was too focused on the photo. It was a strange sensation, seeing what could be yourself in a past life. George knew that when he met Dream he felt like he already knew him, and that just made the whole situation weirder. 

George was brought back to reality when Sapnap joined the call, and their day continued like normal. Every so often, George thinks back to the photo, but it doesn’t bother him anymore. All it does is reassure him that he was meant to meet Dream. 


End file.
